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Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
national day of prsyer every day there is a track running snywhere thst nassau otb bettirs want to bet
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday will ease restrictions on political activity by tax-exempt churches and charities, White House officials said, but has backed away from a broader religious liberty order that would have allowed faith-based organizations and companies to avoid serving or hiring gay people.
Conservative religious leaders who were fierce supporters of Mr. Trump’s candidacy had pushed the president to provide faith organizations with much more sweeping relief from Obama-era regulations that protect gay men, lesbians and others from discrimination.
Instead, in an executive order, Mr. Trump will offer a vague promise to “protect and vigorously promote religious liberty.” He will also direct federal agencies to exempt some religious organizations from Affordable Care Act requirements that provide employees with health coverage for contraception.
By making those promises to mark the National Day of Prayer at the White House, Mr. Trump is offering a partial remedy to the anger inside some religious communities toward federal laws they believe require them to put aside beliefs about homosexuality, contraception or other issues.
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Mr. Trump’s executive order on political activity, which he will sign while hosting conservative religious leaders, tries to overcome a provision in the federal tax code that prohibits churches and other religious organizations from directly opposing or supporting political candidates.
Officials said Mr. Trump will direct the Internal Revenue Service to exercise “maximum enforcement discretion” so that religious organizations and other nonprofit groups are not subject to punishment for expressing political views during campaign seasons.
The move is likely to be hailed by some faith leaders who have long complained about ominous — but rarely enforced — threats from the I.R.S. that they could lose their tax-exempt status, costing them millions of dollars in fines. They said such actions unfairly stifle their voices.
Many clergy members, however, say they do not want to endorse political candidates from the pulpit because it could split their congregations and distract from their religious messages. This appears to be the case even among evangelicals, although it was Mr. Trump’s conservative evangelical advisers who encouraged him to address the issue.
Mr. Trump seized on the issue of limited political activism by religious leaders during the presidential campaign, winning cheers at rallies when he proclaimed that the tax code provision, known as the Johnson Amendment, denied pastors their right to free speech during elections.
“I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution,” Mr. Trump promised in early February, just days after taking office.
White House officials said the president’s order will not eliminate the legal provision since doing so would require legislation from Congress. Instead, they said Mr. Trump would direct the I.R.S. not to actively investigate or pursue cases of political activism by members of the clergy.
Such a directive might be quickly challenged in court. But in the meantime, pastors could feel freer to participate in coming elections without fear of being investigated and having their tax-exempt status revoked by the federal government.
It could, in effect, instruct the I.R.S. to “carve as wide a berth as possible” and allow churches and other houses of worship to participate openly in campaigns for political candidates without any repercussions, said Richard W. Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame and an expert on church/state issues.
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